Property consequently held absolute property of father.

JUDGEMENT :- This second appeal has been filed by the plaintiff in O.S No.69 of 1970 in the court of the Additional Subordinate Judge, Pondicherry. He filed a suit for a declaration that the sale deed executed in favour of the first defendant and subsequently the sale deed executed by the first defendant in favour of the second defendant are null and void. The suit properties originally belonged to the plaintiff's ancestors. The plaintiff's father got them under a partition dated 31-1-1922, marked as Ex. A-1. The plaintiff's father, who is not a party to the suit, executed a sale deed in favour of the first defendant on 6-1-1969, marked as Ex. A-12. The first defendant is none other than the brother-in-law of the plaintiff. In other words, the first defendant has married the plaintiffs sister. The sale deed was thus executed by the plaintiff's father in favour of his son-in-law. The first defendant executed a sale deed in favour of the second defendant. The case of the plaintiff was that his father was a person of unsound mind and that the sale deed in favour of the first defendant having been executed when he was a person of unsound mind conveyed no title to the first defendant and that the first defendant in turn cannot sell the properties in favour of the second defendant.

2. The defendants took up the stand that the plaintiff had no locus standi to question the alienation, that his father was the absolute owner of the properties and that he could deal with it in the best manner possible. They disputed that the plaintiff's father was of unsound mind and therefore incapable of executing the document in favour of the first defendant.

3. The trial court, after framing relevant issues, came to the conclusion that the first defendant purchased the properties from his father-in-law without valid consideration and knowing that he was a lunatic, that the sale deed in his favour was, therefore, null and void and that the second defendant was not a bona fide purchaser for valid consideration. In the result, the suit was decreed as prayed for by the plaintiff,

4. The second defendant filed an appeal, which was disposed of by the First Additional District Judge, Pondicherry. He held that it was not proved that the plaintiff's father was of unsound mind at the time of execution of Ex. A-12, that the plaintiff had no right to question the validity of the sale deed for want of consideration as the vendor alone could do so and that the plea of nullity of the sale deed was not maintainable. It is against this judgment and the decree following it, the present second appeal has been filed.

5. At the time of the admission of the second appeal, the following substantial question of law was framed, as arising out of the judgment of the lower appellate court-

Whether the suit properties are ancestral properties in the hands of the plaintiff's father and if so whether the Hindu Succession Act 1956 is not applicable in which event the plaintiff would be entitled to half share unless the sale by the father was for binding purpose? The learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the plaintiff had, under the Hindu Law, a right by birth, that the father cannot be taken to be the absolute owner of the properties, that the father was a person of unsound mind and that even if he had any absolute interest the transfer by him in favour of the first defendant was null and void. The respondent, by his counsel, countered these submissions.

6. It is, in this context, necessary to find out the legal position applicable to the Hindus in the State of Pondicherry. Under the Hindu Law in force in that territory. Hindu sons did not acquire any interest in the father's property by birth, whether the property by the self-acquired property of the father or his ancestral property. This proposition was enunciated by the Superior Court of Appeal Pondicherry in App. No.326 of 1964, and has been referred to in Ramalingam v. Manicka Gounder, (1980) 2 Mad LJ 350. In fa